One of humankind’s greatest achievements is the printing press's invention and the written word’s resulting rapid democratization. In the intervening centuries, publishing prices have plummeted to effectively zero, thanks to technology. However, the natural response to ever-lower barriers to publication has been an exponential increase in the volume of written content—and an unsurprising decrease in the quality of writing. The result is today’s readers must be more discerning consumers of what is worth their time—a distinction many make within the first few sentences. But the scarcity of quality writing introduces an interesting opportunity for those willing to invest the time and resources to create high-quality content to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
But is there an objective standard of quality writing? Isn't it largely a matter of taste? Many better writers than I have answered definitively (and affirmatively to the first question, negatively to the second) in excellent books on the craft of writing, some of which I hope to review in future posts. For now, I’d like to make the case for three indisputable standards of decent writing: clarity, concision, and structural and grammatical soundness.
One of my favorite writing-related quotes is from Deirdre McCloskey’s Economical Writing: “Clarity is a social matter, not something to be decided unilaterally by the writer. The reader like the consumer is sovereign. If the reader thinks what you write is unclear, then it is, by definition. Quit arguing."
(p. 83) It's human nature for writers to believe their prose perfectly understandable because they know exactly what they're trying to say. But readers can’t get inside writers' heads, and it is easy to lose an audience in the chasm of a logical leap the writer fails to identify and fix.
Concision encompasses a few ideas. One is that the written word competes with potential readers’ myriad other responsibilities, priorities, and reading options. A tightly argued piece is much likelier to be read to the conclusion. Second is that good writing is evidence of good thinking (another McCloskey-ism). A writer's ability to convey the thesis simply and concisely demonstrates a mastery of the topic the reader will appreciate.
Structural and grammatical soundness should go without saying but are far from foregone conclusions today. Readers will generally forgive the occasional typo or grammatical slip—but consistent issues quickly become distracting. They can also obscure meaning, and the harder readers have to work to understand the message, the likelier they are to abandon ship in favor of smoother seas elsewhere.
A brief anecdote to bring my case for quality writing standards home: Several months ago, a friend asked me to read an e-mail she’d drafted. A neighborhood movement was afoot to try to stop the city from taking out some beloved trees, and the neighbor leading the effort circulated an e-mail requesting donations to support the cause, assuming universal opposition to the trees’ removal. However, my friend saw another side. The trees caused frequent sidewalk damage, requiring city repairs and disrupting foot traffic. The roots also impacted some neighbors’ plumbing lines, causing further damage. Finally, the trees were a shallow-rooted variety, introducing heightened risk they would come down during a winter storm. My friend wanted to make these points to her neighbors without alienating them.
Her draft e-mail made her case well enough. However, knowing she was likely in the minority, her tone was slightly defensive and abrupt. She also made a few logical leaps which lost me. So I asked her a few questions: “What do you mean in this section? And here, where you go from this point to that, could you talk me through your reasoning?” I then tweaked her e-mail—helping smooth the rough edges, fill in the gaps, and adjust the tone, while aiming to maintain her original message’s spirit and voice. She was pleased with the edits and sent the revised e-mail response to the neighbor leading the campaign.
The primary conclusion to draw from both this story and the aforementioned writing standards? Everyone needs an editor.
Sometimes, a writer can adequately self-edit—particularly everyday communications, like e-mails to colleagues. But even self-editing is a step too few seem to take amid the world’s accelerating pace—which can easily lead to miscommunication, confusion, or worst of all, recipients’ ignoring e-mails altogether. During my finance career, I often flagged long, convoluted e-mails for later reading when I had the time and inclination to decipher them. Which, yes, meant a growing list of flagged e-mails to which I never returned. Had their authors taken a few moments to re-read and tighten their e-mails, I likely would’ve read them immediately in full—which, presumably, is any writer’s goal.
Often, self-editing is insufficient—a good edit frequently requires a relative outsider’s eye to be useful. No matter the topic, writing takes some thought, and it can be easy for the writer to get caught up in those thoughts and fail to recognize their own errors—grammatical mistakes, long sentences that are perfectly cogent in the writer’s mind but that make logical leaps which can easily lose the reader.
My anecdote has a happy ending: Several days later, my friend called me and said, “I heard back from the neighbor! He said, ‘Thank you so much for your
e-mail. I read every word.’” (Emphasis mine.) Which supports my initial contention: Quality matters. My friend’s message was received because it was thoughtfully and coherently laid out in an open tone that resulted in a productive conversation, instead of a neighborhood argument.
In our ever-noisier world, it’s important for thoughtful, intelligent writing to be read. We are not paying enough attention to the quality of our writing. We should be striving to hear from readers, “I read every word.”
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